Reflections on life: the funny, poignant, serious and quirky

Read a tip in my daily newspaper today that I will never use. Ever. Now they say you should never say never—but this one I am sure of. It was submitted by Maureen in the “Tip of the week” section of the paper by Reena Nerbas called Solutions & Substitutions. Maureen suggests, not tongue in cheek that “If you want to cook several hotdogs over a bonfire, here’s a timesaver. Put the wieners on the tines of a metal rake and cook many at once.” Yeah, right.

Here is another hint I will never use. It is from the book “Haley’s Hints” which boasts “over 2000 of the most extraordinary money & time saving uses for ordinary household items….at your fingertips.” So, are you ready? On page 154 under a section called “Sewing and Notions” (I already know I am in the wrong section of the book when the word sewing is part of the title) it is suggested that you “Try leaving your hand-sewing in a decorative basket by the telephone or your favourite chair. You can have a chat with friends or watch television and get a few hems and buttons done as well.” I did sew a button on once, and there is proof. My husband (a lovely man with a strange sense of humour) took a picture of me. As if it was some rare occasion. Okay, it was a rare occasion, but I still did not appreciate the fact that he took the picture. Martha Stewart I am not. Enough said.

In this next section, I am going to share some tips that you may find handy, interesting, or make you pause and say in an incredulous fashion: “I didn’t know that”:

1. Cleaning marks on wallpaper is often easy if you rub the stain with rye bread (not whole wheat, not French bread, but rye bread—no

English: Loaf of dark rye bread (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

explanation is offered as to what magic agent rye bread has, but hey, Haley’s Hints was a Worldwide TV Series, so he must know something. I do understand why you wouldn’t use raisin bread, though.)

2. Fill a spray bottle with flat beer to use as a setting lotion. Since this hint was in the section for Hair Dos and Hair Don’ts, I am assuming that the flat beer is supposed to help keep your hair curled once you have curled it. I don’t know about you, but eau de brewery is not my fragrance of choice.

3. Here’s another one for tips I will never use. Ever. I am going to quote it verbatim because they seem serious—as hard as that is to believe. “Save your different coloured pantyhose and leotards and cut off the legs. Tie them to the size that fits your head to make great headbands. This gives lots of colour variety and lets you match them to your outfits.” Okay, am I the only one who finds wearing panty hose on my head a bit weird?– unless of course you are a frat guy and prone to wearing underwear on your head (or so the legend goes).

4. Someone told me the other day that we are going to be inundated with mosquitoes this year—so in an effort to try and make this blog worthy of the space it is takes up I will provide you with a couple of hints that actually may be useful care of Mr. Haley:

(i) It is said mosquitoes dislike the smell of onions and oranges, so “rub over your exposed areas.”(I imagine this does not take into account nudists and their ‘exposed areas’).

(ii) To keep mosquitoes from breeding in your rain barrel, pour a little cooking oil on the surface.

Okay, I said the hints may be useful. If you left your rain barrow in the last century then maybe this book is ever so slightly out-dated.

My favourite tip? Besides rubbing onions on exposed body parts to discourage mosquitoes, and beer battered hair, my favourite tip (that has held me in good stead for lo these many years) is to not store your onions and potatoes together. Unfortunately the reason why escapes me right now, so I will have to employ my executive assistant, Google. Excuse me, I will be back in a minute. (Seriously I timed it and it only took a minute.) You should not store onions and potatoes together as they both emit gases that cause them both to spoil. Well that makes sense—nothing like a good tip that makes sense, unlike the panty hose caper and barbeque rake.

Oh, this post had me laughing Aunt Lou! And, even though Gillian may have worn pantyhose on her head and looked cute (because, seriously, Gillian always looks cute), I’m a firm believer they look best on legs, not head. Funnily enough, Mom told me today that she heard of someone using pantyhose to truss a turkey. The nylon burned in the oven, and so did the turkey. Further evidence that pantyhose belong on legs!

Oh, I am glad I am not completely out to lunch on this–you are right Gillian always looks cute, and you always look classy. I have enough trouble cooking turkey as it is, so will not be adding another reason for failure to my repetoire.

~ AWARDS ~

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